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ADDRESS OF PRESIDENT HARDING 

AT THE 

JOINT BANQUET OF THE CONVENTIONS OF POSTAL ASSOCIATIONS 

THE NEW WILLARD, WASHINGTON, D. C, OCTOBER 13, 1921. 



Mr. Toastm aster, Ladies and Gentlemen of the Convention', 
Your Guests: It is very gratifying to have your cordial greeting. 
It has been more than delightful to me to sit at the table during your 
postprandial feast and listen to the addresses and share with you a 
little wider understanding of our obligations to one another and our 
common obligations to the American people. 

Postmaster General Hays did not give me any new picture concern- 
ing you. I enjoyed his cross-section discussion. I was thinking of 
it yesterday as you called upon me, but bless you I knew about 
postmasters before I came to the Presidency. I used to help pick 
them in the good old days. [Laughter and applause.] I am not sure 
but I named more of them 20 years ago than I do to-day. [Laughter.] 
And I thought, while Mrs. Harding and I were enjoying your call 
yesterday, how truly representative you were of the varied commun- 
ities in American life. I suppose I am just a little partial to the 
great rural community, because I began my life there, and I never 
knew much of the great city except by occasional observation; and 
I know the steadiness of the great current of thought in the rural 
life of America, and to-day there came to me an application of it. 

It was the fortune of the Postmaster General and myself and some 
others to be the guests of one of }^our guests of the evening, Mr. 
Curtis, on his yacht, and I saw for the first time in my life a gyro- 
scopic stabilizer, an invention that is designed to steady a ship in 
a rough sea. Mr. Curtis told me that this wonderful device had the 
effect of reducing the roll from 16° to about 3°, making the yacht 
very steady and comfortable in a storm. I don't know just why it 
came to me at the moment, but somehow or other there came the 
thought that those who speak for the great rank and file throughout 
America in the rural sections are the stabilizers of the American 
Republic. [Applause.] I mean no disparagement of the great 
cities. I am just as proud of the great cities of America as any 
citizen of the Republic, We would not be the America we are with- 

74396—21 



out them, but they are just a little different; they are more ephemeral 
in their passions; they show a little more of the passing whims, but 
out over the broad areas of this wonderful land of ours is that thought- 
ful, steady, sturdy citizenship that is unmoved by the passing storms, 
and it constitutes, in my humble judgment, a guaranty of the 
perpetuity of this wonderful land of ours. [Applause.] 

If I may speak of it now, because it is in my heart to say it, I like 
the thought advanced by Mr. Smith just now. Of course it is going 
to be difficult for any President to say in advance just what he is 
going to do about his Postmaster General [laughter and applause], 
but I like that thought of choosing from those who have grown up 
in the service [applause]. I don't mind telling you that that has 
been the policy of this administration in every branch of the Govern- 
ment, to call into greater responsibility the men who are trained in 
service. I am glad, however, that I persuaded Will Hays to become 
Postmaster General. [Applause.] There have been many great 
Postmasters General serving the United States, to whom it is a fine 
thing to be a successor. Most of them have had some knowledge of 
politics and Hays is not lacking in that qualification. [Laughter and 
applause.] I will not charge him with any great responsibility in 
bringing about my nomination, but he had a lot to do with the cam- 
paign which followed it, and since I say it when he is not present, I 
have no hesitancy in saying it when he is present, that in all that 
trying time he grew constantly in my confidence and regard. [Ap- 
plause.] So, when I became President elect and was casting about 
for the official family I asked him to become one of the family, and I 
make the allusion in order to tell you what impelled him to come 
into the cabinet. In a confidential talk he said, "Senator" — then I 
had no other title — "I have an opportunity to progress and achieve 
most satisfactorily to me in a professional way, but I have been 
interested in this enterprise politically; our associations have been 
pleasant; if I can come into your family and make a record of serv- 
ice and real contribution to my country I will put aside the profes- 
sional attainments to render the service you ask." [Applause.] 

I believe he will have the satisfaction of that compensation, and, 
I like to say it to you servants of the Republic, that is the only 
.compensation worth while. [Applause.] 

I meet a good many people nowadays who are not averse to enter- 
ing the public service [laughter], and there are many people whom I 
a>m rejoiced to recognize. I take it that we are not all of one party 
here to-night, and I am not averse to postmasters being interested 
in politics, I want you to know. [Applause.] If anybody ever comes 
to me and tells me that a man or woman is- seeking a post-office 
appointment and has no party affiliations, he is going to be wiped off 
the list right then and there. [Applause.] I wouldn't sdve a rap for a 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



P 

postmaster who is not interested in his Government as a participant 
in a political party. [Applause.] I would rather have a hard-boiled 
Democrat than an apologetic Republican. [Applause.] And when 
men come to me asking for a place in the Government service, and the 
first inquiry they make is the salary that goes with the appointment, 
that applicant is at once stricken off the list. [Applause.] No man is 
worthwhile who is merely seeking a place, but the man is worthwhile 
who seeks to render a service. [Applause.] 

Maybe it will interest you — there is a popular impression through- 
out the land that Government employment carries with it large and 
generous compensation. There never was a more mistaken idea. 
There are some men measurably well compensated in the Government 
service. They are rare exceptions rather than the rule, and if tiiis 
administration achieves the success that we hope for, for our country's 
good, a very large measure of it will be due to the activities of men 
who are impelled only by a desire to serve and who have put aside 
their private pursuits to serve their country and their fellow citizens, 
essentially without compensation. [Applause.] It would be an 
interesting story to tell you of the men now engaged in service who 
receive no salary whatsoever. I have known nothing so gratifying 
in all my experience as the manifest readiness of capable men to put 
aside their own properly selfish pursuits to come and serve the 
Republic in a day of great emergency. And there has been an 
emergency, fellow Americans. I do not speak now in a partisan 
sense; I do not speak in a sense of criticism of anything that has gone 
before, but our Republic, like the other great nations of the world, 
has emerged from a great trial that has put nations to the severest of 
tests, and it is no small problem to put our Republic squarely on its 
feet again and head it in the right direction, and it has called for the 
service of every man and woman in the Republic who- is interested 
in the welfare of our common country. I know we are going to 
succeed. We may not reach the ideal state this year or next. It 
may not be reached in this administration, but as the Postmaster 
General said, the heart of America is right and we can not and will not 
fail. [Applause.] 

You have been hearing a great deal about understanding. 1 have 
sought to preach the gospel of understanding. You have heard 
much about service, and I participate in preaching the gospel of 
service, and I venture to say to you that the greatest things we will 
record in the passing years of restoration and reconstruction are to 
come of understanding and service. 

There has been some publicity lately — becoming publicity, let it be 
said — about the reduction of the cost of government. Most of that 
is coming through added efficiency of service on the one hand and 
understanding between governmental departments on the other hand. 



If there is one criticism that may be properly uttered about our. 
popular Government of the United States — probably of other Gov- 
ernments in the world — it is that under our development of separate 
departments they have had no thought of each other, and the one 
thing that is being achieved nowadays is bringing these departments 
into an understanding of the functions of each other and the necessity 
for their coordination in serving a common purpose. I will not ven- 
ture to go into figures. The Postmaster General has already stag- 
gered us with figures that no one ever dreamed of. Well, I will not 
say quite that. I asked him a moment ago how many letters there 
were handled each day, and he sent me over a note saying there were 
40,800,000. I looked at it a moment and I said, U I guess that is not 
as large as I thought it was." I believe we get half that many every 
day at the White House [laughter], telling me how to conduct a con- 
ference on international affairs and to cure the ills of unemployment. 
[Laughter.] Which takes me back to another rather interesting 
illustration of the popular thought in our land. 

I returned to my -home town, in Ohio, last summer a year ago, after 
a certain political gathering which was held in the city of Chicago, 
and. a dear old crossroads blacksmith, who had been my friend from 
boyhood, met me on the street one day, and he said, " Warren, I have 
been taking your paper for 32 }^ears and have rather enjoyed reading it, 
and I am glad that you got the nomination for the Presidency. It will 
give you a chance to show people what you can do after you have 
been telling them for 32 years how to run the country." [Laughter 
and applause.] While I smiled at this shaft, he looked at me rather 
pitifully, I thought, and he said, " Well, I guess they have got things 
adjusted now so it isn't very much trouble to be President anyhow." 
[Laughter.] That is the only mistake I ever knew him to make. 
[Laughter.] " 

Mr. Smith said — getting back to my theme — he thought men 
ought to be inspired to believe there was a chance for far greater 
accomplishment. I want that to be the gospel of America. If there 
is any one thing that has enabled this Republic to outstrip many 
another nation in the world, it is that ours is a land of opportunity. 
And I believe, as well, it is a land of reward, the greatest of which, 
always, is the consciousness of things done. But I want America to 
expand in this understanding, in this process of humanizing, in this 
added fraternity, ever to be a better place in which to aspire and 
achieve. If we can do that for our own people in the commitment to 
service and the determination to understand one another, it is not at 
all impossible, my countrymen, that this great Republic may point 
the world to the way of understanding and a better order for all 
mankind. [Applause.] And I hope that may be our fortune. 



The Postmaster General has alluded to the forthcoming conference 
among great nations in this Capital City. There has been much 
discussion about the possibilities. There have been many errors as 
to its intent. 

I venture to say I think I know you well; you have done more 
than merely perform the functions, the mechanical and business 
functions, of your offices; I have seen the postal forces of America 
in the hour of great crisis leading their several communities to the 
service of the Republic. I never will forget the service you rendered 
throughout our anxieties amid the World War. [x^pplause.] I 
know what you did, and it was a service impelled by loyalty and 
•devotion to the Republic. [Applause.] I like, Senator Townsend, 
what you said about the necessity of serving only the American 
Government and its people. [Applause.] If this Government can 
not be fair to those who serve it, it fails. [Applause.] Sometimes 
jt may be tardy, but the heart of the Republic is right, as we have 
said, and if we can be loyal in service to those in our own land and 
establish a better order here, we will only be loyal to God Almighty 
and our fellow men if we use our influence in committing the world 
to those things which we have found so helpful to us. 

Let me say to you, ladies and gentlemen, you are just as big a 
part of this governmental machine as anybody here in Washington. 
Every man and every woman can play his or her part, and no one 
-can do more, and, as Mr. Smith said a little while ago, if General 
Hays is the greatest Postmaster General of all time it will be because 
he has able assistants and the loyal devotion of these 300,000 or more 
who are serving in the Postal Department. [Applause.] I am glad 
you like Hays and his assistants. [Applause.] We are in accord 
about that. I will say to you he is a devoted general in command. 
Sometimes we think we will have to extend the period of cabinet 
meetings to give Hays time enough to boost the Post Office Depart- 
ment. [Laughter.] If you have confidence in General Hays, as you 
•deserve to have, I can add to your confidence in your Government 
by saying to you that while they may vary in personality and their 
manifestations of interest, the head of every department of this Gov- 
ernment of yours is giving the same energy, the same enthusiasm, 
the same thought, and the same devotion to his department, and 
when you have an administration like that we can scarcely fail to 
achieve measurably good results for this common country of ours. 
[Great applause.] 



WASHINGTON : GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE : 1921 



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